Mithali Raj, full name Mithali Dorai Raj is a cricketer from India, born in Jodhpur, Rajasthan, on December 3rd 1982. She is the daughter of Dorai Raj, her father and Leela Raj, her mother. In her career, she got a chance to captain the Indian Women’s cricket team in both test and ODI formats and became quite successful.
Seeing her performances over the years, Mithali is considered the best female cricket player and has been ruling the game for ages. Her sheer dominance over world cricket can be seen by going through her records to date. Mithali has scored the most international runs as a women cricketer and is the only one in women’s cricket who passed the 6000 runs mark in the ODI format. Apart from being a great batter, her ability of right-arm leg break is also quite prominent in world cricket as per female cricket match highlights 2022
Her Background
At ten years of age, Mithali started playing cricket, and she, with her big brother, used to be coached cricket from their schooling days. Mithali started her domestic career by playing cricket for the Railways team, and from there, she emerged as the star player of India.
Debut
In the first ODI match of her career, she scored a century of 114 runs against Ireland on June 26th 1999. On July 4th 2002, she got her chance to play the first test match of her career against England on Indian soil. But her test debut resulted in being a nightmare as she got run out for 0.
After almost four years, on August 5th 2006, she played her first T20I match again against England and played a very slow inning of just 28 runs from 37 deliveries. But fortunately, India was able to win that match with eight wickets in hand.
Making Her Mark: Success Story
There is no denying the fact that Mithali Raj is one of the best women cricketers from India, but her sheer prowess in batting makes her one of the greatest in the entire world. With her hard training and willpower, she is able to make herself become one of the most delicate batters the world has ever seen.
Mithali Raj also broke the record of Karen Rolton for scoring the most number of runs in a single test inning. Previously 209 was the highest individual score in an innings, but she broke that record by scoring 214 runs against England at the County Ground.
In her captaincy, she took India to the 2005 Women’s Cricket World Cup final, but unfortunately, India lost that final against Australia. In a test series against England in the same year, 2005, India managed to win the series mainly due to the contribution of the Mithali Raj in that series. But the Indian Women’s team ended that year brilliantly by winning the Asia Cup under Mithali’s captaincy.
To date, the sheer skills and talents that Mithali possess helped a lot in various ways to team India in multiple situations. The year 2003 was quite special for her because she was honoured with the Arjuna award for her immense contribution to India’s Women’s Cricket team.
Mithali Raj, the skipper of the Indian Women’s cricket team, is also known for her aggressive batting by staying calm and composed in critical situations, which helped the Indian team often.
Mithali Raj has had a very long career with the Indian cricket team. To date, she played over 200 ODI matches for India and scored a total of 7805 at a respectable average of 50.68 with six centuries and 64 half-centuries. Her best score in ODI is 125 runs in a single match.
Mithali Raj’s test career is quite interesting. Her records are pretty excellent, but for some reason, she did not play many tests for India. To date, she played only 12 matches in total and scored 699 runs with quite a good average of 43.68. Her highest score is 214 in one inning, along with four half-centuries.
Regarding the shortest format of the game, Mithali Raj is a trendy name in the Indian team. From her 89 T20I matches, she scored a total of 2364 runs at a staggering average of 37.52, along with 17 half-centuries, and her highest score to date is 97.
Whether male or female, every player in the cricketing world has faced downtime in their long cricketing careers, and Mithali is also no exception. In the World Cup of 2002, she suffered from severe typhoid, and she could not continue to play in that World Cup. Later this became a severe issue as the Indian Women’s cricket missed her contributions a lot and could not perform that well in that year’s World Cup.
Some Of Her Memorable Records
For a very long time, Mithali has scored the highest number of runs in a World Cup match, 91 runs from 114 deliveries. But later, this record was broken by her own teammate Harmanpreet Kaur.
Mithali Raj still holds the record of having the most number of runs in all three formats for the team India. Along with this, she also holds a unique record of scoring seven half-centuries in a row.
Mithali Raj is the only Indian Women’s cricket team player who has consecutively played the most number of matches in World Cups.
Awards She Won
In her long cricketing career, her contribution to the team India has been immense. For her tremendous gift, the government also honored her with the Padma Shri, the 4th highest civilian award of India, the Arjuna Award for cricket and the Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna award for her great cricketing career.
When we talk about Indian Women’s cricket, Mithali Raj is the first name that comes to mind. She is the face of the Indian team. Any cricket enthusiast can never forget her contribution to the team. Due to her, the world came to know about the greatness of Indian women’s cricket, which nobody cared about before.
Reference Link; https://www.sportskeeda.com/player/mithali-raj
